Does My Husband Even Need Me Anymore?

My husband & I are both 25 years old & have been married for nearly 3 years now.

He has been running his own home business for the past year & ever since then he’s been acting more & more selfish. Although I will say I am very lucky, in that we do love each other & he would never cheat on me & never goes out to drink or does those types of things.

He very much likes to stay home & work.

This is the issue, he works a lot, sometimes 17 hours per day, & although I understand that this is important for someone who runs their own company & he’s doing it for our future it’s just too much.

I have tried to tell him calmly how I feel & that I don’t mind that he works hard I just wish he would pull it back a little… He does try to do that, however I have to constantly push him & remind him to take a break & come have lunch/dinner or even come to bed to sleep for the night. If I’m not there he’ll rarely take a break or stop to think of me. I HATE nagging him to do it.

He can be selfish in the way that I will come home from my job in the evening at about 7.30pm, we’ll eat something, then he’ll go to visit his father for a few hours who lives near by. He doesn’t do this every night, but he works so much during the day that at night when I come home, I just want to be with him.

He’ll normally come home at about 10.30pm or even 11pm from his dad’s home, then we only have about 2 hours together to talk in bed before he falls asleep.

I have told him this is hurtful, & he will do it anyway.

So sometimes I will go with him to his fathers, even though I don’t really want to just so I can be with him. Mind you he has his lap top there & will work at the same time. I have asked him sometimes to please not go to his dad’s & stay with me & he’s reply is. ‘Well his my father’. And I will say, ‘well I’m your wife’. I don’t mind him visiting his Dad, just not at 8pm till 10.30pm
at night. That’s the time when we should be connecting at the end of the day together.

I am not highly demanding, I just want my husband to realize life is not just about him & his business & work, that there is more to a marriage than just supporting financial help. I just wish he would be a little less selfish & notice that at the end of the day I am his wife. It’s very hurtful & I cry about it alone allot.

Hope you can give me some ideas.
Thanks
Susie

Hi Susie,

I know exactly what you are going through… Sadly to say I have been that man.

You need to first off understand that he thinks he’s doing all he can for his “family” such as it is.

He is making money (hopefully) and is able to provide to you the basics… and this is not out of a needed, weird, self-desire to control you, but to offer you a great life through hard work.

He needs to understand how you need him, emotionally, not just as a great provider.

You need a date night… time together outside the home. A dinner, shopping chores, gardening…. I don’t care what it is. Time together, chit chatting like you used to do (although this might just bore him), but on a regular basis.

For the next three weeks, no more harping on him to spend tome with you. Connect with your girlfriends and begin a regular night out… your husband can’t be your only friend, right?
Enjoy yourself without him as he does his “duty” with visiting his father.

He understands that you are his wife… he’s not chasing other women, he’s not gambling away mortgage payments.. he just needs to miss you a couple of times to be reigned in again.

Everyone in a while the husband needs to remember that the wife has her own life too.

This will make a change and help you to lose some of your resentment about the way he spends his time. And the time you waste waiting for him.

You can have friends and plans to go out too.

This is the change you have to make to help him need you again, in front of others.